Direct Contracting in Healthcare

A $20,000 joint replacement, all in, anesthesia included, with no surprise bills: in Mark Cuban's example, that is the carve-out an independent surgery center can pitch directly to the self-insured employers among its patients. On this episode of the BackTable Podcast, Dr. Ruchika Talwar, value-based care leader, talks with Mark Cuban, entrepreneur and founder of Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, about who actually sets the price of care in the United States. They trace how a cold email about drug shortages led to Cost Plus Drugs and then Cost Plus Wellness, an open source library of direct contracts between self-insured employers and providers; why surgery centers that “do nothing but joint replacements” can win employer contracts with no middleman; why he believes the contract, not the published price, is where the real problems hide; and why he tells orthopedic practices, “You have to do outbound sales.”